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If you are an independent game development company and you are just starting out, then it would be ideal to fill out your own Business Model Canvas. This canvas is a helpful tool in allowing you to describe to your peers in your indie company what you want to set out to achieve. This canvas is separated into 9 different parts and each part carries significance. This should provide a foundation on how to run your business, and what to incorporate into any new game(s). Do you add cheats into the game like GTA did with their GTA Cheats? Do you add expansions?
Key Partners – Who will be your key partners in the everyday operations of your company? How will you work with your key partners? What will their roles be in helping you produce your ideal gaming content?
Key Activities – What is the bread and butter of your everyday operations? What do you do best as a company? What needs to be done to keep the workflow steady? There are key development stages of a game that need to be addressed and activities such as acquiring tools for programming and designing would certainly help.
Key Resources – General networking with other people who are in the know in the gaming industry is a key resource. Also, what kind of tools do you already have? What kind of programming and designing technology do you have that will set you apart from the rest of the pack? What about support groups? Can they provide you the resources you are looking for?
Value Proposition – The core of the Business Model Canvas describes the gaming products that you will offer on the market. This category is in the middle of the canvas for a reason. You need to know what types of games you are going to make, and more importantly, why you will be making them for your target audiences.
Customer Relationships – Know your target audiences. Simply put, don’t be making First-Person Shooter Games for audiences that love Role Playing Games. That is an example of not knowing your target audience. Define what your target audience likes and why your gaming products would be good for them. There are many gaming computer brands on the market in this day. For instance, the Razer 13.3 laptop which has all the up-to-day technologies installed to allow for the optimum gaming experience.
Distribution Channels – There are many different ways to sell your gaming products, and there is no one right way of selling them. Will you have online stores? Will your games go right to the retail stores? Are they available for downloading? Will you offer hard copies of games? WIll you be promoting your games, or do you think Youtubers like Tfue will be giving your game enough promotion? Fortnite has received a heavy promotion from plenty of YouTubers and these channels are so into talking about the game that they will even talk about things as simple as their control schemes, for example, the Tfue fortnite Settings. Could your game be next to get this treatment? Keep in mind what kinds of sales outlets you want your business to operate with.
Customer Segments – How are you target audiences active? How exactly do you reach your target audiences? Do you use social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.? Do you use live streaming videos on platforms like Google+ Hangouts, Twitch.tv and the like? How much activity goes on in your target audiences?
Cost Structure – Let’s not forget about the economics themselves. How much will everything cost to get your game project off the ground? How much will it cost to have your own headquarters? How much staff will you employ? Are commissions involved? Any bonuses? What about bills and additional costs? Whatever you acquire for your company, it will cost money.
Revenue Streams – Finally, this is where you will get to know how successful your gaming product really is. This is where you will get the results from all the sales that you make on regularly scheduled processes. This will be an indicator of whether or not you are succeeding with your product, what you are doing right with it and what needs to be changed about it.
The gaming industry is a fun place to work in, but it is also challenging and it requires you to do some homework regarding the business side of the industry. Before there can be fun and games with the video games that you and your development team create, the work must be put in to assure that you will have success out on the market. If you are going to build a long-lasting franchise with a single game you will need to define all the little details of what you want your game franchise to capture.
Emphasis must be put on knowing the pulse of the gaming community, knowing what they will warmly receive and what they won’t. It isn’t so much about following what is currently trendy on the market but rather what your game can provide that will keep gamers interested. If the concept of your new game is something that has already been done before and it just has a different coat of paint over it, so to speak, then gamers won’t be so willing to buy your product. If you come up with a concept for a game that is different and stands out in a variety of ways, then you will stand a better chance of generating more sales.
Last but not least, know when your gaming franchise has run its course. If you have made a long series of successful games for one game franchise, then know when to take the next step. Sometimes you will need to put an official end to that game franchise, or you will make a series of spin-off games to complement your main franchise, or you will simply reboot the game franchise and start all over.
